Ten Year Performance Study for Air Ionized Odor Control at the Denver Metro Wastewater Reclamation District

Polarized air ionizing hardware that produces positively and negatively charged oxygen molecules, or ions, but no ozone, will be discussed. This technology has been successfully applied at wastewater facilities in Europe for twenty years. The ionized air effectively oxidizes most air contaminants including hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, and other organic gases. In addition to providing odor control and a safe work environment, air ionization is shown to prevent the corrosion of electronics and equipment. Systems employing this technology have now been applied by Trans-Tech at many installations in the United States, and performance data has been obtained from these full scale operations. These ionizers are small portable modules that can be installed as self-contained recirculation units complete with fan. Alternately, the modules can be installed in ductwork on the fresh air supply side of an existing ventilation system. Each duct mounted model 50F5 ionizer is 64 × 22 ×21 cm (25 ×8.8 ×8.4 in) and weighs only 7.3 kg (16 lb.) System sizing, or number of module required, depends on both the volume of air treated and the contaminant concentration. Operating installations at wastewater facilities in the United States include lift stations, belt filter press rooms and sludge holding tanks. These facilities report excellent odor reduction, and minimal operation and maintenance cost. The 492 million liter per day (130 million gallon per day) Metro Wastewater Reclamation District, (MWRD), Denver, CO, systems have now been operating successfully over ten (10) years, which invites a study on the performance over those years and the comparable operations and maintenance cost relative to other odor control alternatives. This study was performed with Frontier Mechanical, the mechanical firm to which MWRD outsources the ionizer maintenance on November 6, 2013.